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Canola Trial Yield Seed, Oil, and Feed
Supplement
Posted on
September 1, 2011
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A comprehensive study involving
California State University, Fresno-based researchers,
indicates possibilities for new farming methods on the
West Side of the San Joaquin Valley, which is challenged
by selenium-laden irrigation effluent.
The research work began in 2006 with a
research partnership among California State University’s
Center for Irrigation Technology at Fresno State, a U.S.
Department of Agriculture soil scientist and West Side
farmer John Diener.
West Side growers have tried to reduce
their production of selenium-laden irrigation effluent
to sustain agricultural land, said Gary Banuelos, lead
researcher on the project. He represents the USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service based in Parlier.
One method of using excess selenium in
West Side drainage water is to apply the water to salt-
and selenium-tolerant crops. Several of these crops are
in the brassica family, which includes canola and
mustard.
“For canola to be widely accepted as a
crop and be used to manage the volume and selenium
content of effluent produced in the West Side, it is
imperative that viable economical uses for the harvested
plant product be created,” Banuelos said in a report on
the project.
The primary goal of the project was to
successfully grow canola using selenium-laden drainage
water. Over two years at Diener’s farm southwest of
Fresno, the research team established several 40-hectare
plots planted to canola and mustard.
The test plots were irrigated with water
high in selenium, yet the crops still produced a maximum
seed yield of 2.2 metric tons per hectare, Banuelos
reported. More than 300 tons of brassica seed were
harvested and processed over the course of the
experiment.
The second project phase was to press the
harvested seed for oil that could be blended with diesel
fuel. This was accomplished on Diener’s ranch with
research funding provided by the California State
University Agricultural Research Institute, state
Department of Water Resources and the USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service.
The funding enabled purchase of a dry
extruder and oil press capable of extracting up to 90
percent of the available oil from the canola and mustard
seed.
With cooperation from Russ Teal of
Biodiesel Industry in Santa Barbara, the pressed oil was
processed and blended with commercial diesel fuel to
produce Biodiesel (BD) 20. The biofuel was successfully
used to power 5.9-liter Cummins diesel irrigation
booster pumps on Diener’s DK Farm.
The final project goal was to produce
nutritious, palatable cattle feed supplement that would
meet selenium needs of dairy cattle. Under the
supervision of Dr. Jon Robison, a dairy science
professor at California State University, Fresno, feed
trials were conducted at the Fresno State Dairy.
“These studies showed that
selenium-enriched canola and mustard did not
significantly increase total blood and serum Se content
in either cow breed,” Banuelos said. And while selenium
concentrations in milk increased, they remained at safe
levels.
Additional long-term studies should be
conducted, Banuelos said, but the initial outlook is
encouraging.
“Our testing demonstrated that the
coupling of selenium phytomanagement with biofuel
production may provide growers with a unique opportunity
to increase environmental sustainability in areas with
high selenium conditions, and at the same time reduce
use of petro-diesel in sensitive parts of California,”
Banuelos said.
In addition, with more than 1.8 million
dairy cows in California alone, there is a large market
for selenium-enriched brassica feed meal that
could be met from the West Side, he said.
For more information on
this research, contact Banuelos at
gary.banuelos@ars.usda.gov.
(Source: Fresno State)
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